Myanmar verifying Muslim citizenship

In this photo taken on Nov. 10, 2012, Muslim refugees walk as Myanmar police officers stand guard at Sin Thet Maw relief camp in Pauktaw township, Rakhine state, western Myanmar (Photo - Khin Maung Win/AP)

SIN THET MAW, Myanmar (AP) -- Guarded by rifle-toting police, immigration authorities in western Myanmar have launched a major operation aimed at settling an explosive question at the heart of the biggest crisis the government has faced since beginning its nascent transition to democracy last year.

It's a question that has helped fuel two bloody spasms of sectarian unrest between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims since June, and it comes down to one simple thing: Who has the right to be a citizen of Myanmar, and who does not?

A team of Associated Press journalists that traveled recently to the remote island village of Sin Thet Maw, a maze of bamboo huts without electricity in Myanmar's volatile west, found government immigration officials in the midst of a painstaking, census-like operation aimed at verifying the citizenship of Muslims living there, one family at a time.

Armed with pens, stacks of paper and hand-drawn maps, they worked around low wooden tables that sat in the dirt, collecting information about birth dates and places, parents and grandparents - vital details of life and death spanning three generations.

The operation began quietly with no public announcement in the township of Pauktaw on Nov. 8, of which the village of Sin Thet Maw is a part. It will eventually be carried out across all of Rakhine state, the coastal territory where nearly 200 people have died in the last five months, and 110,000 more, mostly Muslims, have fled.

The Thailand-based advocacy group, the Arakan Project, warns the results could be used to definitively rule out citizenship for the Rohingya, who have suffered discrimination for decades and are widely viewed as foreigners from Bangladesh. Muslims in Sin Thet Maw echoed those concerns, and said they had not been told what the operation was for.

"What we know is that they don't want us here," said one 34-year-old Muslim named Zaw Win, who said his family had lived in Sin Thet Maw since 1918.

So far, more than 2,000 Muslim families have gone through the process, but no "illegal settlers have been found," said state spokesman Win Myaing.

It was not immediately clear, however, what would happen to anyone deemed to be illegal. Win Myaing declined to say whether they could deported or not. Bangladesh has regularly turned back Rohingya refugees, as have other countries, including Thailand.

Few issues in Myanmar are as sensitive as this.

The conflict has galvanized an almost nationalistic furor against the Rohingya, who majority Buddhists believe are trying to steal scarce land and forcibly spread the Islamic faith. Myanmar's recent transition to democratic rule has opened the way for monks to stage anti-Rohingya protests as an exercise in freedom of expression, and for vicious anti-Rohingya rants to swamp Internet forums.

In the nearby town of Pauktaw, where all that remains of a once-significant Muslim community are the ashes of charred homes and blackened palm trees, the hatred is clear. Graffiti scrawled inside a destroyed mosque ominously warns that the "Rakhine will drink Kalar blood." Kalar is a derogatory epithet commonly used to refer to Muslims here.

Myanmar's reformist leader, President Thein Sein, had set a harsh tone over the summer, saying that "it is impossible to accept those Rohingya who are not our ethnic nationals."

But this month, he appeared to change course, penning an unprecedented and politically risky letter to the U.N. promising to consider new rights for the Rohingya for the first time.

In the letter, Thein Sein said his government would address contentious issues "ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship," but he gave no timeline and stopped short of fully committing to naturalize them.

The operation observed by the AP in Sin Thet Maw appeared to be part of an effort to resolve the issue.

By law, anyone whose forefathers lived in Myanmar prior to independence in 1948 has the right to apply for citizenship. But in practice, most Rohingya have been unable to. They must typically obtain permission to travel, and sometimes even to marry.

Discrimination has made it hard to obtain key documents like birth certificates, according to rights groups. Many Rohingya, having migrated here during the era of British colonial rule, speak a Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, with darker skin than other ethnic groups in Myanmar.

The road to naturalization grew more difficult with a 1982 citizenship law that excluded the Rohingya from a list of the nation's 135 recognized ethnicities. Since Bangladesh also rejects them, the move effectively rendered the Rohingya living in Myanmar stateless - a population the U.N. estimates at 800,000.

The issue is so fraught that even the word "Rohingya" itself is widely disputed. Buddhists say the term was made up to obscure the Muslim population's South Asian heritage; they do not accept the Rohingya as a separate ethnic group, and instead call them "Bengali" - a reference to the belief they are in fact Bangladeshis who entered illegally.

While some Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations and have documents to prove it, others arrived more recently. There is little distinction between these two groups, though. During the last official census in 1983, the Rohingya were excluded.

In places like Sit Thet Maw, Rakhine Buddhist elders believe they are on the front line of a population explosion, and they are worried.

Some 70 years ago, there were about 1,000 Buddhist and 100 Muslim inhabitants here, according to Said Thar Tun Maung, a 59-year-old Rakhine who works as a local government administrator. Today, the Buddhists are a minority: They number just 1,900, compared to 4,000 Rohingya residents.

Tun Maung blamed the demographic changes on higher birth rates among Muslim families, and the illegal arrival of new migrants hunting for fertile farmland and good fishing. Several thousand more Muslims arrived in October after Rakhine mobs burned their homes in the town of Kyaukphyu, swelling the Muslim population here even further. The refugees' presence is considered temporary - they are currently camped along the beach beside their ships.

"This is our land," Tun Maung said. But "it's slowly being taken away from us, and nobody is doing anything to stop it."

The AP team that visited Sin Thet Maw observed four-man government teams conducting interviews with dozens of Muslim families. The Rohingya live in a separate part of Sin Thet Maw that is completely segregated from the Buddhist side of the village by a wide field running hundreds of meters (yards) inland.

Most of those interviewed had temporary national registration cards that were issued by authorities ahead of elections in 2010 in an apparent effort to secure their support. The cards granted the Rohingya the right to vote, but they were stamped with a major caveat that read: "Not proof of citizenship." Most also showed government-issued forms on which their family members had been registered.

There was one question, though, that the officers did not ask - the one that mattered above all the rest. It was represented on the forms by a blank line beside the entry: "Race/Nationality."

After each interview, the officers filled in the empty space with the words: "Bengali," or, "Bengali/Islam."

The consequence of such answers is unclear. One officer, Kyi San, said only: "We're collecting data, not making decisions on nationality."

But several Muslims interviewed by the AP complained that officers refused to classify them as Rohingya, declaring that "the Rohingya do not exist." One man said he was beaten after refusing to sign a form identifying himself as Bengali.

"Being Bengali means we can be arrested and deported. It means we aren't part of this country," said Zaw Win, one of the Muslims who had been interrogated. "We are not Bengali. We are Rohingya."

Written by TODD PITMAN
Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win and Yadana Htun contributed to this report.

Muslims Face Expulsion From Western Myanmar | Thomas Fuller

(Photo - Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times)

A Muslim girl at a camp for displaced people in Sittwe, where Muslims face what some groups are calling ethnic cleansing.

SITTWE, Myanmar — The Buddhist monastery on the edge of this seaside town is a picture of tranquillity, with novice monks in saffron robes finding shade under a towering tree and their teacher, U Nyarna, greeting a visitor in a sunlit prayer room.

 But in these placid surroundings Mr. Nyarna’s message is discordant, and a far cry from the Buddhist precept of avoiding harm to living creatures. Unprompted, Mr. Nyarna launches into a rant against Muslims, calling them invaders, unwanted guests and “vipers in our laps.”

“According to Buddhist teachings we should not kill,” Mr. Nyarna said. “But when we feel threatened we cannot be saints.”

Violence here in Rakhine State — where clashes have left at least 167 people dead and 100,000 people homeless, most of them Muslims — has set off an exodus that some human rights groups condemn as ethnic cleansing. It is a measure of the deep intolerance that pervades the state, a strip of land along the Bay of Bengal in western Myanmar, that Buddhist religious leaders like Mr. Nyarna, who is the head of an association of young monks, are participating in the campaign to oust Muslims from the country, which only recently began a transition to democracy from authoritarian rule.

After a series of deadly rampages and arson attacks over the past five months, Buddhists are calling for Muslims who cannot prove three generations of legal residence — a large part of the nearly one million Muslims from the state — to be put into camps and sent to any country willing to take them. Hatred between Muslims and Buddhists that was kept in check during five decades of military rule has been virtually unrestrained in recent months.

Even the country’s leading liberal voice and defender of the downtrodden, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has been circumspect in her comments about the violence. President Obama made the issue a priority during his visit to the country this month — the first by a sitting American president — and Muslim nations as diverse as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have expressed alarm.

Buddhists and Muslims in western Myanmar have had an uneasy coexistence for decades, and in some areas for centuries, but the thin threads that held together the social fabric of Rakhine State have torn apart this year.

Muslims who fled their homes now live in slumlike encampments that are short on food and medical care, surrounded by a Buddhist population that does not want them as neighbors.

“This issue must be solved urgently,” said U Shwe Maung, a Muslim member of Parliament. “When there is no food or shelter, people will die.”

Conditions have become so treacherous for Muslims across the state that Mr. Shwe Maung travels with a security force provided by the government. “They give me a full truck of police,” he said. “Two, three or four policemen is not enough.”

Leaders of the Buddhist majority in the state say they feel threatened by what they say is the swelling Muslim population from high birthrates and by Islamic rituals they find offensive, like the slaughter of animals.

“We are very fearful of Islamicization,” said U Oo Hla Saw, general secretary of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, the largest party in the state. “This is our native land; it’s the land of our ancestors.”

During outbreaks of sectarian violence in June and again in October, villagers armed themselves with swords, clubs and sharpened bicycle spokes that they launched from homemade catapults. In Muslim-majority areas, monasteries were burned. In Buddhist-majority areas, mosques were destroyed. The mayhem was set off by the rape and murder of a Buddhist girl for which Muslims were blamed.

The center of Sittwe, a former British colonial outpost, is now empty of the Muslims who once worked in large numbers as stevedores and at other manual jobs.

“I’m scared to go back,” said Aye Tun Sein, who was a teacher at a government school before the upheaval. In his village, Teh Chaung East, a 20 minute drive from Sittwe, he said that no one has a job because no one can leave the village, a collection of shacks and tents.

Political leaders describe the near total segregation of Muslims as temporary, but it appears to be more and more permanent.

“I don’t miss them,” said U Win Maung, a bicycle rickshaw driver whose house was burned down in June by his Muslim neighbors. “The hatred we have for each other is growing day by day.”

During his visit, Mr. Obama spent a considerable portion of a speech at Yangon University focusing on the importance of diversity, singling out the “danger” of the Rakhine situation and telling his audience “there is no excuse for violence against innocent people.” 

“What we’ve learned in the United States is that there are certain principles that are universal, apply to everybody no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what religion you practice,” he said.

Divisions are so deep in Rakhine State that the communities cannot agree on what the Muslims should be called. Many Muslims call themselves Rohingya, an ethnic group that is not officially recognized in Myanmar, formerly Burma.

Small Muslim communities coexist with the Buddhist majority across Myanmar, but hatred is greatest for the Rohingya, partly because of their large numbers — at least 800,000, according to the United Nations — and their concentration in Rakhine State. (The country has a population of 55 million.)

The Buddhist residents of Rakhine see themselves as the inheritors of the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Mrauk U. They do not consider themselves ethnically Burmese, and the government recognizes them as a separate group. Rakhine Buddhists say they feel squeezed, persecuted by the Burmese majority and threatened by the swelling Muslim minority.

Before the violence, Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims had a sort of master-servant relationship, a castelike system in which Muslims did menial work and Buddhists were usually the bosses.

“We lived side by side but we never talked to each other,” said Daw Htwe May, a 51-year-old Buddhist resident of Sittwe who lost her home in the violence.

A group of Buddhist women burst out laughing when asked whether their children played with Muslims.

“Even a small boy knows that he should not play with a kalar,” a pejorative term for people of Indian descent, said Daw Thein Hla Yi, 55.

Buddhists say Muslims should be considered illegal immigrants, and they are angry that foreign countries and the foreign news media have sympathy for Muslims.

Leaders from both groups reach back into history for justifications for their cause.

“These people did not migrate from anywhere,” said Mr. Shwe Maung, the Muslim member of Parliament whose father was a police officer and whose grandfather was a landlord in Rakhine State. “They have been living there for several centuries.”

President Thein Sein told a visiting delegation from the United Nations in July that only Muslims who have been in the country for at least three generations would be allowed citizenship. The rest were a “threat to the peace of the nation,” he said, and would be put in camps and sent abroad. The United Nations rejected the idea, saying that it was not in the business of creating refugees.

Diplomats say that Mr. Thein Sein has retreated from that position and is now talking about resettling displaced Muslim populations inside the country. He sent a letter to the United Nations just before Mr. Obama’s visit saying that once passions cooled he would “address contentious political dimensions, ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship.” But he offered no details or time frame. He has ordered a commission of inquiry, which is expected to issue a report in the coming months.

In Sittwe, Buddhists say they are not ready to make concessions. Mr. Nyarna, the monk, said many Muslims do not “practice human morals” and should be sent to Muslim countries to be among “their own kind.”

Children Face Malnutrition in Burma Camps, Unicef Report Confirms

A school for Rohingya kids without a building in Myanmar (Photo - IHH Turkey)

PHUKET: An alarming report from Dan Rivers of CNN this week said in summary: ''We have come to Rahkine state in Burma (Myanmar) to report on the latest threat to the Rohingya. What we have found is shocking. 

''I was expecting the displaced persons camps to be grim - but I wasn't prepared to see children starving to death. This isn't journalistic hyperbole. Thousands of kids are starving to death.''

Concerns about children dying in camps come as ethnic cleansing in Burma forces teenage boys and men to take to the sea in barely seaworth vessels to sail past Phuket seeking sanctuary.

The nightmare of malnutrition, deaths at sea and possibly genocide is taking place on what, in a small world, can be categorised as Phuket's doorstep. 

NOW this media release comes from UNICEF:

UNICEF scales-up response, calls for stronger combat against child malnutrition in Rakhine State

Rakhine State - While precise information about nutrition levels in Rakhine State is still difficult to obtain, UNICEF is very concerned about the extent and severity of child malnutrition, which has been exacerbated by the ongoing conflict.

Child nutrition levels were not good prior to the outbreak of the Rakhine conflict in June, and subsequent population displacement and the security situation has hampered access to affected children.

UNICEF is scaling up its ongoing efforts to reach children across ethnic lines in need with life-saving nutrition interventions.

''We are working with the government and other partners for unabated access and for additional funding to address the key issue of child malnutrition in the Rakhine state to reverse the risk faced by the children affected by conflict,'' said UNICEF Representative Bertrand Bainvel.

On November 20, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Burma has launched an additional US$41 million Revised Response Plan for Rakhine. The Revised Plan will support urgent humanitarian aid to 115,000 internally displaced persons, living in camps with little or no access to basic services, up till June 2013.

A joint rapid nutrition assessment, carried out in Sittwe in early July indicated a 23.4 percent prevalence of Global and 7.5 percent of Severe Acute Malnutrition in the locations where displaced people are congregated. 

Findings indicated that some 2000 acutely malnourished children were facing a high risk of mortality, with 650 of these children in a severe condition and in urgent need of therapeutic feeding, and an additional nearly 9000 children in need of micronutrient supplements. 

A further 2500 children were likely to develop acute malnutrition if adequate food, healthcare and water and sanitation was not provided.

UNICEF has been working with the Government and partners to examine the nutritional status of children in Sittwe, both to confirm the initial estimates of the severity of the situation and to ensure that those in need receive help as a matter of priority. 

In late October, of 4066 children examined using the Middle and Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) measurement screening method, 413 were found to be severely acute malnourished and 649 moderately malnourished. 

All these children were treated but they require ongoing nutritional support and UNICEF expects there are more children in similar situations that have not yet been identified and reached.

In response to the situation, UNICEF, through the State Health Department, provided Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food and supplementary food for 6-59 months old children along with micronutrient supplements and continued to promote young child feeding practices including breastfeeding and complementary feeding.

At the point when the second outbreak of unrest broke out in Rakhine in October, expert estimates suggested around 2900 acutely malnourished children were at high risk of mortality; 930 of these children were in severe condition that required therapeutic feeding and some 2000 children were suffering from Moderate Acute Malnutrition and in need of supplementary feeding. 

A further 12,000 children aged 6-59 months old and some 5,400 pregnant and lactating women were in need of micronutrient supplementation. Some challenges in terms of access still exist, with 29 percent of IDP population still unreachable by partners as of October.

More resources are urgently needed to continue and strengthen the nutrition response including for assessments, case identification, referral, monitoring and surveillance. 

Therapeutic feeding must be provided urgently to save the lives of 930 severely acute malnourished children identified thus far and urgent supplementary feeding is needed for the 2000 moderately malnourished children is essential to stop them from falling into severe acute malnutrition. 

Micronutrient supplement must be provided to a further 5400 pregnant and lactating women and 12,400 under-five children to avoid serious malnutrition deficiency and the risk of consequent mortality.

The various organisations working to provide nutrition aid estimate that to respond to the need of a total of 115,000 IDPs for one year, total funding of some US$1.28 million is required . With around $400,000 already secured by partners, the immediate nutrition funding gap is $880,000.

Over the past decades UNICEF adopted a community-based nutrition intervention approach to address persistent child malnutrition in Rakhine, the second poorest state in Myanmar, in the host communities as well as in the displaced population. 

The already vulnerable situation was exacerbated by ethnic conflict that started in June this year.

UNICEF is committed to supporting the health, education, protection rights and prospects of all children in Rakhine State and across Myanmar, based on its humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality.

About UNICEF

UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. 

For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org

Free Rohingya Campaign and Myanmar Muslim Civil Rights Movement joint petition for Free Dr. Tun Aung

Dr Tun Aung and Family were arrested because they are among very few educated Rohingy a who have access to modern technology to inform the world about ethnic cleanisng and genocide in Arakan Burma. Read his case profile here

He is 65 years old and a patient of Pituitary Tumor and received Nauru surgery twice, one in 1997 and again in 2004 because of the recurrence of tumor. The condition remains serious and still under vital medication and suffering from serious side effect of the medicines. He has very limited eye vision due to the tumors on both sides of the eyes. He recently received varicose vein surgery on his both legs.

Sittwe Provincial Court sentenced religious leader Dr. Tun Aung (aka) Nu Hauk to a total of 12 years imprisonment on Wednesday for his role in the communal strife which erupted in Maungdaw, Arakan (Rakhine) State, on June 8.

Dr. Tun Aung faced six charges, including instigating a riot and fraud, stemming from a request he made to the local authorities on June 8 to hold a gathering to pray for 10 Muslims killed by an Arakanese mob in Taunggok Township on June 3. Despite giving assurances that the gathering would not result in violence, a riot broke out and Htun Aung was later arrested on June 11.

He was sentenced to seven years under the Section 5(j) of the Emergency Provision Act, two years each under the Sections 153(a) and 505(c) of the Criminal Code as well as an additional year under Section 6(1) of Wireless and Telegraph Act of 1933.

Arakan News Update: Forced Labours continue in Maungdaw

29th November 2012, Maung Daw  - On 26/11/12, paramilitary officer of (3) mile NaKaSa headquarter, MaungDaw has compellingly ordered to Mr. Ayub Khan (f) Mr. Du Du Mya, head of Myo-Thu-Gyi village track to arrange five pairs of drought cattle to harrow the lands of NaSaKa and Na-Ta-La villagers and to put altogether (5) manual workers. The NaSaKa has been arranging every year a free labor facility such odds and ends in fields which were confiscated from Rohingyas for 20 years ago for NaTaLa villagers --who were feebly brought from Burma proper and are intentionally being implanted among Rohingyas villagers since 1992 -- to get reek and then mole the affairs of Rohingya Muslims villagers to and --- create mess at the same time to play coordinated filthy political game on Rohingyas in accord with government directions from time to time.

The order of NaSaKa head to arrange five or six pairs of drought cattle to harrow and (5) additional manual labors for every time by Myo Thu Gyi village and Thaung-Pyine village to their requirement, no one knows how many days the Rohingya villagers have to supply such a potent and uncompensated tough labor to the NaSaKa and Na-Ta-La villagers in coming days.

On 28/11/12, NaSaKa forces of 3 miles, MaungDaw Township summoned Mr.Zakaria (f) Mr.Abdul Amin, age 27 years, who is running a shop in MaungDaw market, without any reason and kept in its custody at (3) mile NaSaKa station and as of now no family member has got any exact information and they are gravely concerned about his safety and security in NaSaKa custody.

In Burma, Ethnic Clash Participants Get Hefty Sentences

Muslim people pass the time at their house in Paik Thay, the site of recent violence between Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhist Rakhine people in Burma, November 2, 2012.

Burma's government has promised to take steps to restore peace in Rakhine state, where violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims has flared up twice in the past six months. In particular, the government has pledged to restore the rule of law, but the decision made in a Sittwe court this week calls the sincerity of that pledge into question.

During a news conference last week, Burmese Border Affairs Minister Thein Htay, the top official overseeing efforts to bring peace to Rakhine state, promised law enforcement authorities in the region are ensuring those accused of inciting the violence that first started in June are brought to justice.

"There are some activities to restore the rule of law so we have appointed some administrators in the region and also we have some units for special investigations," the minister announced.

Despite those pledges, international rights groups are concerned that there is mounting evidence that prisoners are being held without due process. Matthew Smith of Human Rights Watch was recently in Rakhine state, formerly known as Arakan.

"I do know hundreds have been rounded up in northern Arakan state," Smith said.

"There are detention facilities throughout northern Arakan, Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Rathedaung and all these places are alleged to be home to detainees now so there's definitely a big need to get some independent eyes into these prisons to talk to people and find out what's going on."

This week Tun Aung, an ethnic Rohingya, was sentenced to 15 years in prison as part of the inquiry into the Rakhine unrest. However, he was convicted of the rarely-prosecuted charge of possessing foreign currency and for transmitting photos of the violence by e-mail. Amnesty International reports he has not been able to seek legal counsel, nor been able to receive medical care for a pituitary tumor.

Tun Aung’s daughter, who works for the United Nations refugee agency, was also arrested and remains in jail at Insein prison in Rangoon.

Abu Tahay, a Rohingya community leader and former MP-elect, says Tun Aung is not the only ethnic Rohingya to receive a hefty jail sentence without a fair trial.

"Not only Tun Aung there is almost hundred people also from Buthidaung and Maungdaw also sentences eight to 12 years within months by the courts. So no lawyers are allowed as per court procedures," he said.

Kyaw Hla Aung, a local administrator for Doctors Without Borders, was in prison with Tun Aung until he gained release in August. He says they were tortured while in jail and were forced to deny their Rohingya ethnicity and say they were, in fact, Bengali.

"Very bad condition. 185 accused were still in jail custody under trial of other cases and two accused were also tortured in jail and killed last 10 days ago," he said.

The two dead men were identified as 56-year-old Shukur Gyi and 60-year-old Fur Ahmed. Kyaw Hla Aung said, when their bodies arrived at their village for burial, they bore signs of torture.

Rights activists say the inquiry into the Rakhine violence is another reminder that the Burmese judicial system has remained largely untouched by recent reforms, and still lacks the independence required for an impartial investigation.

Arakan News Updates: Operations against Rohingyas and Kamans

November 28, Pauktaw, Arakan: A joint operation of Police, Immigration, NaSaKa (Border Security Force), and In-Charges of the Pauktaw township administration together with the Rakhine Extremists from Rakhine National Development Party (RNDP) is being carried out against Rohingyas and Kamans in the township. The joint department is threatening Rohingyas and Kamans that their access lines to foods and medicines will be cut off if they don’t identify and name the illegal Bengalis among them.

Some members of this operation are:

1. Aung Myint Oo and Maung Yan Htun, R.N.D.P (Rakhine National Development Party) members of Pauktaw Township,
2. Than Shwe (Chairman) and Aung Myint Shwe (Secretary) of Ponna Kyi Village Tract, Pautaw Township,
3. NaSaKa and Police staffs of Pauktaw Township.

The irony is that there no Bengalis among them as they are out and out Rohingyas and Kamans. However, torturing, harassing and forcefully making them to say something unreal is a method of genocide and expulsion of these people that the government and Rakhine terrorists have been using for quite a long time.

The question is what RNDP members are doing with Police and Immigration and others? They are neither from neither governmental bodies in Burma nor from the military. They are just members of a political party that doesn’t hold any authoritarian power. So, all in all, it is no longer secret to anyone that it is a state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in cooperation with Rakhine extremists from RNDP intended to annihilate Rohingyas and Kamans from Arakan.

Written by Nyi Nyi Aung and Edited by M.S. Anwar